Good governance and democratic leadership for an African Renaissance: A reflection on AU member states’ compliance with the AUCPCC

Abstract

After decades of corrupt post-colonial governance, African leaders collectively acknowledged that good governance was a prerequisite for African renewal and required an unprecedented fight against corruption prevailing on the continent. The Constitutive Act of the African Union (CA-AU) features good governance among its objectives and principles. Good governance was stressed further in subsequent AU instruments adopted within the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and its African Peer-Review Mechanism (APRM). AU leaders’ commitment to fighting corruption culminated in the adoption of the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC).

As Africans prepare to commemorate the first decade since the adoption of the AUCPCC, this article reflects on AU member states’ compliance with this instrument, the challenges, and the prospects for a successful fight against corruption. It argues that despite some progress made, this scourge remains unabated and has even aggravated. Most African states have failed to comply fully with the AUCPCC. However, the fight against corruption should be strengthened with the participation of all the stakeholders at national, regional and international levels. Partnerships have to be built and consolidated without neglecting the crucial contribution of the people under a democratic leadership committed to good governance in order to achieve an African Renaissance in the 21^st century.     

On the expansion of species protection in Nepal: Advances and pitfalls of new efforts to implement and comply with CITES

Abstract

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has proven particularly difficult to implement due to the complex legal requirements that it imposes on its parties. As with many other nations, Nepal lacks national implementing legislation, which has greatly hindered compliance with the treaty's provisions in the country and, indirectly, in the region. Here we explore several case studies of actual and potential CITES violations in Nepal that have come to light in the past decade, and review new draft legislation that is designed to implement the Convention and close gaps in enforcement. We predict that some gaps will remain regarding implementation and compliance with CITES in Nepal, and make several recommendations to address these issues via rule‐making procedures during the formulation of Regulations and via the actions of the CITES Coordination Council, a provision in the draft Act that is designed to improve cross‐sectoral cooperation.     

The war on cartels and the social meaning of deterrence

The global war on cartels has had much success in introducing tough sanctions for cartel conduct, such as price fixing and market sharing. The policy rhetoric justifying criminalization assumes that compliance can be induced through deterrence. This, in turn, assumes that business people know about the law, believe that they are likely to be caught and face enforcement action and jail if they break the law, and calculate that they should comply. This paper problematizes these policy assumptions using evidence from a survey of a random sample of Australian business people and in‐depth interviews with 25 cartelists. This paper argues that business people's knowledge about the law is less important than their relationship with (or distance from) the law. Corporate elites see themselves as intimate with the law and, therefore, able to strategically “play” the law; while small business people and managers lower down the corporate hierarchy see themselves as “innocent” of any knowledge of the law. The impact of a policy of increased sanctions for misconduct cannot be understood solely in terms of marginal difference in aggregate levels of deterrence. It must also be understood in terms of how it interacts with people's experience of the law to create and maintain or contest and destabilize social segmentation and inequality.     

Codes in context: How states,markets, and civil society shape adherence to global labor standards

Transnational business regulation is increasingly implemented through private voluntary programs – such as certification regimes and codes of conduct – that diffuse global standards. However, little is known about the conditions under which companies adhere to these standards. We conduct one of the first large‐scale comparative studies to determine which international, domestic, civil society, and market institutions promote supply chain factories' adherence to the global labor standards embodied in codes of conduct imposed by multinational buyers. We find that suppliers are more likely to adhere when they are embedded in states that participate actively in the International Labour Organization treaty regime and that have stringent domestic labor law and high levels of press freedom. We further demonstrate that suppliers perform better when they serve buyers located in countries where consumers are wealthy and socially conscious. These findings suggest the importance of overlapping state, civil society, and market governance regimes to meaningful transnational regulation.     

国际环境条约遵约机制研究——以《卡塔赫纳生物安全议定书》为例

近年来,国际环境法中出现了一种特有的促进履约的新机制——遵约机制。该机制已经在多个国际环境条约体系下建立,被认为是国际环境法发展的一个新趋势。本文以《卡塔赫纳生物安全议定书》遵约机制为例,对国际环境条约遵约机制的内容进行了介绍,进而分析了遵约机制所具有的、不同于传统遵约保障机制的特点,以及遵约机制对国际环境条约实施效果所具有的重要意义,并认为遵约机制仍存在一些可能会影响它作用发挥的不足之处。     

企业刑事合规的风险防控和建构路径——由中兴受裁事件所得启示

企业刑事合规是企业防控刑事法律风险、实现可持续发展的基础,不仅可以增强企业犯罪风险防控能力,还对整个企业起着综合性的积极效应。伴随全球化进入瓶颈期,我国企业不仅需要应对国内刑事合规风险,更要面临着愈加严峻的海外犯罪的刑事合规风险。我国企业的刑事合规路径应当从法律手段和内部治理两方面进行建构,立法方面,扩大单位犯罪范围,赋予企业合规义务;司法方面,完善单位犯罪出罪量刑机能,准确进行定罪量刑;企业内部,摒弃理念化的刑事合规,完善犯罪内控机制。法律手段和内部治理双管齐下,建立起具有中国特色的企业刑事合规制度。     

民营企业刑事合规的解构与展望

企业刑事合规制度起源于美国，已逐渐具有全球化的趋势。中国对企业合规问题日益重视，但是民营企业的刑事合规仍然属于制度空白。相较于其他类型的企业而言，民营企业的整体规范性较差，且具有脆弱性，刑事法律在控制犯罪和保障企业生存方面均呈现出不足之处。刑事合规制度能够将国家的刑事监管责任部分内化为企业的管理责任，具有教育问题企业、节约司法资源、减小司法社会负效应的积极意义。鉴于中国民营企业的实际情况，应明确有效刑事合规计划的内涵，构建刑事法律对企业合规的激励机制，推进民营企业自主建立有效的刑事合规计划。     

Out of the Shadows: Explaining the Undeclared Economy in Baltic Countries

Until now, participation in undeclared work has been explained through either a structuralist lens as driven by ‘exclusion’ from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy or through a neo-liberal and/or post-structuralist lens as driven by the voluntary ‘exit’ of workers out of formal institutions and into this alternative realm. Reporting the results of a 2007 survey of undeclared work in eight Baltic nations, this article reveals how such either/or explanations need to be transcended and replaced with an appreciation of the heterogeneous nature of such work and the diverse motives underpinning participation.     

DETERRENCE AND MORAL PERSUASION EFFECTS ON CORPORATE TAX COMPLIANCE: FINDINGS FROM A RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIAL*

Previous studies on tax compliance have focused primarily on the tax‐reporting behavior of individuals. This study reports results from a randomized field test of the effects of deterrence and moral persuasion on the tax‐reporting behavior of 4,395 corporations in Israel. Two experimental groups received tax letters, one conveying a deterrent message and the other a moral persuasion message. Three types of measures are used to evaluate compliance based on the magnitude of the difference‐in‐differences of means in 1) gross sales values reported to the authority, 2) tax dollars paid to the authority, and 3) tax deductions. Overall, both deterrence and moral persuasion approaches do not produce statistically significant greater compliance compared with control conditions. These results do not support the ability of a policy of sending tax letters to increase substantively the reporting of true tax liability or tax payments by corporations. However, these results also show that moral persuasion can be counterproductive: Corporations in this experimental group show an increase rather than a decrease in tax deductions, which translates into loss of state revenues. The implications for theory, research, and tax policy are discussed.     

Using the institutional grammar tool to understand regulatory compliance: The case of Colorado aquaculture

What is the relationship between the design of regulations and levels of individual compliance? To answer this question, Crawford and Ostrom's institutional grammar tool is used to deconstruct regulations governing the aquaculture industry in Colorado, USA. Compliance with the deconstructed regulatory components is then assessed based on the perceptions of the appropriateness of the regulations, involvement in designing the regulations, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations. The findings suggest that levels of compliance with regulations vary across and within individuals regarding various aspects of the regulatory components. As expected, the level of compliance is affected by the perceived appropriateness of regulations, participation in designing the regulations, and feelings of guilt and fear of social disapproval. Furthermore, there is a strong degree of interdependence among the written components, as identified by the institutional grammar tool, in affecting compliance levels. The paper contributes to the regulation and compliance literature by illustrating the utility of the institutional grammar tool in understanding regulatory content, applying a new Q‐Sort technique for measuring individual levels of compliance, and providing a rare exploration into feelings of guilt and fear outside of the laboratory setting.